I stopped watching TV for a week to see what would happen

TV is one of those things that is a constant in all our lives, but do we spend too much time watching TV? And could we use our time better? Probably. So I switched mine off for a week to see if anything happened.

I’m one of those people who like to put my money where my mouth is. After my phone experiment last week I was curious to see if I could build on it. I did notice that I can spend a lot of time in the evenings in front of the TV when I didn’t have my phone in my hand so it kind of defied the point of what I was trying to achieve. Some nights it can be up to three or four hours that I sit there. Four-freaking-hours! And I complain that I don’t have time to get all of my stuff done, and now I know why.

Day 1

Today, I’m adding to what I achieved last week. Just because I finished up with my experiment from last week doesn’t mean that I was picking up my phone again. But now, I’m not going to be sitting in front of the TV for hours at a time. Don’t get me wrong, I have children and value my sanity so I have the TV on during the day to help the kiddies amused. But the problem isn’t during the day, I can easily skip a Peppa Pig marathon during school hours. The problem is, what am I supposed to do in the evening now with no TV and no phone?

Day 2

My Tivo box is nearly full and it’s scary. Last week, I set a series link for NCIS. Did you know that there are 15 series now? I didn’t, and my Tivo box is bursting at the seams! It takes every fiber of my willpower not to pop on a few episodes to clear some space. Plus, I still don’t know what to do with myself. I’m in such a habit of plopping down in front of the TV for a few hours after the kids have gone to bed, and that is not a good thing.

Day 3

Today was a tough day because my husband was out all day. I was so tempted to kick back and pop the TV on and watch and a few episodes. Instead, I got myself organised for bed earlier and thought about what I could do in the evenings. Do you know what? There is plenty that I can do. I could read, I could knit, I could sit in quiet meditation and ponder the world.

Day 4

All the kids were running around the house so I managed to turn the TV off completely. It’s crazy how time flies when you don’t have background noise to distract you. Today, I went shopping, worked out meal plans for the week, and cooked from scratch. Having more time in the evening makes it easier for the next day. I’ve also noticed that losing the phone and TV has made my mind a lot clearer.

Day 5

Today was about cooking and trying to be together as a family. In fact, I didn’t just cook, I dug out a lot of my recipe books and crafty ideas. I started planning ahead in life, something that I never do. I even started my Christmas shopping. Yeah, beginning of September and I’m grabbing stuff for the kids for Christmas.

Day 6

It’s really surprising how much you can get done when the TV isn’t on. Today I managed to make a plan for different posts for months to come. I’ve been digging out different books and notebooks, finding ideas that I had forgotten about. The unfortunate thing about this is my to-do list is getting longer because I’m not glued to the TV.

Day 7

This is the last day of my TV purge, and no harm, but I can’t wait for this to be over. The state of the Tivo box is stressing me out, so I deleted it all. There were nearly 200 episodes of NCIS. As much as I would love to sit and watch them all, it wasn’t happening. I’ll buy them on DVD. I deleted nearly all of my shows, the only one I left was Elementary because it’s on once a week.

So…..?

This was definitely a surprising week. Apart from freeing up my time (which was the purpose of the experiment) it was very liberating. I sit and watch the TV because I feel like I have to. I have to watch those programmes so that I can get space freed up so that I can watch other programmes. I think I’ll just buy the boxsets and watch them when I have some free time instead of using all of my time to watch them.